ROUGHY 40 per cent of the world's total fish production comes
from Asia and for many years, the great proportion of this catch
came from the vast number of small-seale or artisanal fishermen
who live by the coastal water. The contribution of these
fishermen, estimated in 1982 in the ASEAN countries alone to
number 2 million (or 10 million including their dependents), to
their national economies and the protein food needs of their
countrymen has been enormous. In 1982 for example, it was
estimated that the fisheries contribution to the economies of
Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand was US$3.2
billion. Nevertheless, the economic positions of small-seale
fishermen have never been stable. The low productivity of
traditional fishing gear, the control of the market by middlemen,
the seasonal nature of their income, their chronic indebtedness;
all these problems have plagued small-seale fishermen for a long
time and prevented them from reaping the full rewards of their
labour.

In recent years, their precarious economic positions have
worsened as a result of new threats and today there is a real
danger that unless strong policies and measures are undertaken to
counter the new and old threats, small-seale fishermen will be
left out of the mainstream of economic and social development,
and reduced to being the poorest of the poor in their countries.
The new threats to small-seale fishermen, most visible in the
ASEAN countries, are due in large part to the adoption of the
policy of export-led growth through increasing foreign and local
capitalist investment by the governments of the region in the
1970s and 1980s.

In the larger national economy, the export-led growth strategy
of ASEAN governments has resulted in misguided infrastructural
developmcut, the clearing of swamps, and the establishment of
industrial areas close to traditional fishing grounds, thereby
destroying fish spawning areas and denying fishing communnities
easy access to the rivers and seas. The depletion of fish stock
available to small-seale fishermen has been further aggravated by
the consequences of other types of economic expansion. As an
example, the Sungai Skudai in Johore, Malaysia, is so heavily
polluted by the untreated discharge from 30 factories that hardly
any aquatic life forms can live or propagate for a distance of
more than 6 miles upstream. Water pollution all over the ASEAN
countries is also being caused by the excessive use of
fertilizers, insecticides, and wcedicides.

Within the fishing industry itself, the rapid development of
heavily capitalized, export-oriented large-seale fishing
operations has had adverse consequences on the well-being of
small-seale producers. Invariably, the large trawler fleets of
this 'modern' fishing sector have competed directly for the fish
resources of the coastal waters worked by small-seale fishermen,
to the detriment of the latter. As a result, a clear pattern has
emerged of diminishing catches by small-seale fishermen. In the
Philippines, it is estimated today that 98 per cent of the
fishermen produce 50 per cent of the total catch whilst 2 per
cent of fishermen engaged in large-seale industrial-type
fisheries net the other 50 per cent. In Thailand, large
capitalist enterprise fisheries now produce 65 per cent of the
total catch while small-seale fishermen net only 35 per cent.

Although the fact of marginalization of small-seale fishermen
throughout the Asia-Pacific region has become quite indisputable,
it is still important to know how exactly this process has taken
place so that the lessons learnt can be applied to help
traditional communities dependent on other types of natural
resources avoid the same fate. What are the forces at work that
have undermined the interests of traditional producers? What has
been the role of government in the transformation of the
fisheries industry from one based on smallseale producers to
large-seale ones? How has fisheries as a natural resource been
affected by the transformation taking place within the industry?
This case study will answer these questions through the use of a
historical approach so as to show how conflict over a crucial
natural resource has been generated over a long period of time
and the impact of the conflict on the interests of various
parties. By focusing on a single country-Malaysiaand examining
the role of government through a study of administrative policies
towards the fisheries sector, it is also hoped that a clearer
understanding would emerge of the reasons why national
governments behave as they do towards natural resources and the
communities that exploit them.

Our review of fisheries in Malaysia begins with the immediate
postwar period when the colonial government began reconstruction
of the country's battered economy, and concern for the proper
development of the fishing industry was expressed by the
authorities due to the urgent problem of adequate food supplies
for a population much ravaged by the war. At that time, too, the
colonial authorities had recognized that important changes were
beginning to take place in the traditional fishing industry,
mainly as a result of the impact of modern technology. The High
Commissioner, in a foreword to a publication by one of his
officers, had sounded the warning that when 'fishing areas
receive the full impact of modern technology the resources must
not be permitted to diminish' (Kesteven, 1949: I). He also
commented that the question of marine resources was 'a problem on
which scientific investigation and wise administration' must be
turned to since 'unlike the land, the sea has no barrier'. These
words were to prove prophetic as the issue of technological
change in the industry and its impact on fishermen who could not
participate in the change was to become a recurrent problem over
the next four decades until the present, when it is still largely
unresolved.

Despite the acute perceptivity with which some officials in
the colonial administration viewed the problems of development in
the fishing industry, the colonial government appears to have
done little for the fishing industry in the short interregnum
between the war's end and the passing of authority over to an
independent government. Rehabilitation of the industry following
the gear losses and depreciation brought about by the war was
largely due to the initiative of individuals within the fishing
community. Similarly, the use of artificial fibre nets and the
mechanization of boats came about less through the efforts of the
Fisheries Department than the private sector's own interests in
improving the industry's efficency and profitability. Preoccupied
with a prolonged guerrilla war waged by the Malayan Communist
Party and more important political developments, it was not until
the eve of independence that the authorities began to initiate a
closer scrutiny of the fishing industry. In September 1955,
largely at the urging of the local representatives in the
Legislative Council, the colonial government established a
committee to investigate the fishing industry in view of the fact
that 'the occupation of fishing is one of the lowest rewarded in
the country' and to suggest 'ways to improve the economic
condition of the local fishing population' (Anonymous, 1956: I).
Unlike other committees appointed by the colonial government, the
committee was not dominated by government representatives who
might have minimized the seriousness of the fishing community's
problems in defence of colonial economic policies. Ten of its
eleven members were Malayans and the strength of local
representation appears to be largely responsible for the
unambiguous character of its output and the candid
recommendations made. The committee's report produced in 1956
warrants discussion as it was in many ways a landmark study that
can be used to evaluate the shortcomings of government policy
towards the small-seale fishing community during the following
years.

The committee prefaced its report by noting that although it
was able to provide recommendations in some detail for the
improvement of the equipment and operations of fishermen, it did
not feel sufficiently confident to provide more than a limited
and superficial survey of the marketing and distribution side of
fishing, which were extremely complex activities related to the
capital structure of the industry. Nevertheless, its main
recommendations were directly connected to the question of
changing the prevailing ownership and control patterns in the
industry. Principally, the committee found that the industry's
main problem arose from the dependence of fishermen on financing,
and through the loan of boats, gear, and nets, by capitalists who
rarely went to sea themselves and exploited the former group by
offering them low prices for their catches and charging high
prices for the equipment or goods sold. To free fishermen from
this exploitative capital structure, the committee proposed that
provision be made for financial assistance in the form of boats
and gear to selected groups of fishermen. Specifically, the
government was advised to encourage fishermen to form themselves
into co-operatives or associations which would receive loans in
the form of credit for the purchase of equipment, repayable over
a certain period with nominal interest and including a
non-repayable subsidy of onethird the amount of the loan. To
administer the co-operatives, the committee recommended the
establishment of a Fisheries Board which was set up as a
statutory body with an initial capital of M$3 million.
Recognizing the difficulty of administering a loan scheme
successfully from previous government experience with loan
defaults, it emphasized that the Board should be provided with
adequate advisory and supervisory staff. Other major
recommendations of the committee were directed towards overcoming
the 'utter dependence of fishermen upon the sea for a livelihood
and upon the almost complete lack of alternative employment' and
the inadequacy of amenities and social services for fishing
communities. To overcome these problems, it put forward a wide
range of recommendations requesting that the government give
special consideration to providing land for fishermen, the
introduction of cottage industry and agriculture, the
construction or improvement of fishing harbours, jetties, and
roads, the expansion of training for fishermen, and control over
the price of ice.

Clearly, the committee had performed well its task of
identifying 'the relevant problems connected with the fishing
industry' and recommending 'ways to improve the economic
condition of the local fishing population'. Besides meeting with
representatives from all sectors of the industry, its members had
also visited fishing villages to study at first-hand the opinions
of fishermen and the fishing communities. The resultant report
was a comprehensive yet thoughtful document which could have been
the basis of a long-term programme to bring about the upliftment
of the fishing community. However, this did not happen. Although
it was a government-appointed committee and despite the presence
of three senior members of the Alliance party who were later to
reach the ministerial ranks, it failed to make an impact on the
incoming government's policies. Except for an attempt at
establishing fishing co-operatives and providing them with
credit, little was done to implement the other recommendations
and the urgency which had prompted the committee's investigation
of the poverty-stricken fishing community was quickly lost. Why
this happened is not clear. It could be that the recommendations
were unworkable or that they became a casualty of the political
differences between rival factions of the post-independent
government. Whatever the reason, it was to weigh heavily on
fisheries development during the next decade.

The general failure of the newly independent government to
implement smoothly the committee's recommendations is clear when
government policy towards the industry and small-seale fishermen
during the next ten years is examined. The decade from 1956 to
1965 saw the implementation by the new government of two national
Fiveyear Plans. These Plans could have provided for the
advancement of the fishing community through the correction of
the adverse consequences that neglect by the colonial government
had produced (and which were identified so clearly by the 1955
fishing committee). But little progress was achieved. No doubt,
the Plans included public expenditure allocations for fisheries
development and had ambitious schemes to extend fishing
co-operatives throughout the East and West Coasts, provide
facilities such as jetties, fishing gear, and ice stores, and
accelerate the mechanization of fishing boats to enable fishermen
to operate in deeper waters. However, the sums set aside were
wholly inadequate for the purpose. Amounting to M$2.4 million for
the first development plan for Malaya and M$7.2 million for the
second, these sums amounted to 0.24 and 0.33 per cent of the
total public expenditure budgets respectively, and the public
funds committed hardly lent credence to the professed aim of the
country's development plans to accord the 'highest priority' to
improving the livelihood of peasant fishermen (amongst other
peasant groups) by raising output and diversifying and
intensifying production. The inadequate allocation of funds was
one problem but more important was the absence of a clear-cut
policy of fisheries development aimed at the small fishermen
community and the lack of an effective administrative structure
to supervise ongomg projects.

Some indication of the government's failings in these two key
areas can be obtained from an analysis of its policy in the area
of cooperatives. The history of the govemment's attempts to
establish fisherecn co-operatives which had been suggested by the
committee as a means of enabling fishermen to purchase their own
equipment and free themselves from the clutches of
middlemen-financiers has been examined by various scholars (see,
for example, Fredericks, 1973; Gibbons, 1976). Their findings
indicate that the experiment with cooperatives was a failure. In
the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia between 1957 and 1963, a
total of M$1.4 million was loaned by the govcrmnent to a
marketing and transport union formed by 43 fishing cooperatives
which supervised its disbursement to fishermen to enable them to
buy equipment. An estimated 16 per cent of the 21,000 fishermen
in the East Coast were said to have participated in the scheme
but only a negligible amount of the loans was repaid and the
extent of operations of the unions was short-lived, with the
scheme coming to a virtual standstill by l962. The loan-scheme
did result in some diffusion of improved technology and provided
an alternative source of credit but it generally failed to make
much inroad into the entrenched capitalization patterns which
were disadvantageous to fishermen and did not bring about
significant improvement in the income levels of fishermen. This
was the first major attempt made by the government to benefit
fishermen through their own organizations and its failure
demonstrated the ill-preparedness of the government.

In the West Coast, a redesigned co-operatives scheme was
introduced between 1961 and 1966 but just as little success was
achieved as with the earlier effort in the East Coast. ()f a
total of M$841,000 loaned by government to seven fishing
co-operative establishments, only 13 per cent was repaid. Three
co-operatives had completely collapsed within a few years and few
benefits of a lasting nature had been provided to the small
number of fishermen who managed to participate in the schemes
(Gibbons, 976: 97)

Why did these attempts at fisheries co-operatives fail when
they had so much potential to benefit fishermen? In 1968 a paper
by the Malaysian authorities reviewing fisheries development
since independence attributed the failure of its attempts to
organize fishermen into co-operatives to an 'apparent lack of
leadership' among fishermen and their low level of education
(Anonymous, 1968: 229). 'Good and able leaders are few and far
between and in turn when they lack organization and co-operation
amongst themselves they can easily fall prey to any unscrupulous
middlemen or profiteers,' argued the paper. It was no doubt true
that the fishing industry was not served by good leaders, but the
critical lack of leadership was more within the bureaucracy than
with fishermen. According to Fredericks (1973: 123-4), the
Cooperatives Department, in explaining the failure of the East
Coast scheme admitted in a departmental document that there was
inadequate staff for administrative and supervisory work, share
capital requirements were unrealistically high, there was divided
administrative responsibilities and authority, and a lack of
coordination between the Departments of Fisheries and
Cooperatives.

The government also could not claim that the problem of
infiltration of co-operatives by influential and opportunistic
individuals or interests was unexpected. In many other parts of
the world, the history of co-operatives is littered with failures
chiefly due to poor management, incompetence, and dishonesty, and
a pattern of individuals or groups not representative of the
target community's interests gaining control of the co-operative
management and monopolizing the activities. The 1955 committee
investigating the fishing industry had anticipated these same
problems in Malaya and cautioned that the government should
ensure 'the provision of adequate advisory and supervisory staff
whether under the Department of Cooperative Development or
otherwise, since these Associations will for the most part lack
that degree of satisfactory leadership without which they cannot
hope to survive' (Anonymous, 1956: 5). Neither was the government
unaware of the inherent difficulties in trying to organize often
dispersed groups of individualistic fishermen to whom the
advantages of co-operative production or marketing were not
easily discernibly. In more congenial conditions in rural and
urban Malaya, co-operatives had failed time and again, thus
putting the onus on the government to approach the subject with
caution.

The key to the co-operative experiment is the attitude and
response of the participants and their perception of the benefits
likely to be attained. Without genuine participation by its
members, no cooperative venture could hope for success. This was
known to the government. At the same time, a selective programme
of co-operative establishment with sufficiently trained and
motivated government personnel supervising activities, together
with stringently administered financial procedures, could have
prevented many of the subsequent problems of mismanagement,
abuse, and dishonesty which plagued co-operatives and reduced
their effectiveness in assuming a leading role in the development
of small-seale fishermen.

The immediate result of the unhappy experience with
cooperatives was to deter the authorities from supporting their
expansion. The defaults on loans were viewed with much concern by
the financial authorities and the regulations for credit
procurement were stiffened with fishermen being called upon to
provide as much as 70 per cent of the capital cost of new
projects. Although this large proportion of initial capital
investment was later relaxed, the lower requirement was still
beyond the resources of most fishermen. One effect was to
restrict the opportunities available to fishermen to adopt more
productive gear through loans obtained from the public sector
which could lessen their dependency on middlemen-financiers.
Another effect was to discourage co-operatives from embarking on
projects which could bring benefits to members. In the light of
this, it is not surprising that even functioning co-operatives
failed to provide much benefit to their members and there were
few, if any, examples of successful small-seale fisherman
collective activity that the authorities responsible for
fisheries could point to, so as to justify an increased financial
and institutional commitment from the government. It was a
vicious circle of failure breeding neglect and inadequate
support, which in turn created more failures.

The lack of success of fisheries co-operatives sounded the
warning that there were important inadequacies in government
policy and the implementational capacity of the administrative
machinery entrusted with the task of protecting the interests of
small-seale fishermen and developing the industry. However, it
failed to lead to any serious review of the problems faced by
smallseale fishermen and the fishing industry. Within the
Department of Co-operatives, it appears that an investigation was
conducted on the reasons for the failure of the East Coast
cooperatives scheme but it was mainly an internal exercise,
confined to the department and inaccessible to other interested
parties. Thus, valuable experience which could have been the
basis for improved policy and effective administration was
quickly forgotten and lost. That the government's inability to
objectively carry out a selfexamination of its weaknesses and
initiate the necessary policy changes weighed heavily on
fisheries development can be gauged from the fact that when
co-operative development in fisheries was encouraged again in the
1970S, the same problems which had dogged the earlier efforts at
co-operative establishment were treated by the authorities as if
they were entirely new ones.

The next critical development in the fisheries industry was to
expose more glaringly the shortcomings in government policy
towards the sector of small-seale traditional fisheries. During
the 1950s and 19605, despite the absence of a leadership role by
the fisheries department, the fishing industry had seen much
technological change. These changes centred on the increased use
of powered craft, synthetic fibre nets, and more efficient gear
and had important results on the structure of the industry. Some
indication of the impact can be inferred from Table 5.I, which
shows that although the number of craft in the peninsula declined
by 15 per cent between 1957 and 1967, the quantity of fish landed
increased to almost three times.

The story of how the increased production was achieved is more
complicated than the statistics suggest. Prior to the 1950S,
although the fishing industry was characterized by a diversity of
gear and craft, the greater proportion of landings had come from
the traditional small-seale sector of labour-intensive fisheries
which mainly relied on unpowered craft with limited fishing range
and simple gear. In the 1950S and early 19605, increasing numbers
of fishermen in the traditional sector, many with credit obtained
from financier-traders, began to invest in powered craft and
synthetic nets which helped raise their productivity. In so far
as this development represented an upgrading of the technological
levels of small producers, it was certainly to be welcomed as it
resulted in greater efficiency, higher productivity, and an
increase in income trends. A properly organized government
programme providing deserving fishermen with ready access to new
but more expensive inputs could have ensured that the
distributive effects of the new technology would be more
widespread. However, as pointed out earlier, the failure of
co-operatives which the authorities had intended to use as focal
points for the distribution of government assistance prevented
this from happening, so that most of the financing for the new
technology came from the ubiquitous financier-traders, who
extracted a high price for it.

The absence of government assistance would not have had such
adverse effects on traditional fishermen had not trawler fishing
been introduced at this crucial period. Introduced from Southern
Thailand into Malayan waters in 1959/60 (there is some dispute as
to whether it was first introduced into the East or West Coast),
trawler fishing was a major technological advance over all
previous fishing methods found in the country. Carried out by
dragging large, machine-winched trawl nets along the seabed, the
method required heavy capital investment in bigger boats,
largercapacity engines, and expensive nets but it justified its
high capital costs by proving highly efficient and productive in
comparison with the passive traditional methods of fishing which
mainly relied on stationary gear. Trawling quickly established
itself as the most lucrative fishing method and attracted the
attention of a large number of capitalists who were lured by the
prospect of quick profits. According to one report, about 400
trawlers were operating mainly in Perak, Selangor, and Johore by
1965 but another source estimates that there were as many as 200
large trawlers and 700 small ones operating by 1963. The example
above of conflicting information about how many trawlers were
found in the peninsula and where they were operating points to
the failure of the authorities to mount a close watch on the
industry during the early period of its development and monitor
its seale of operations and impact on fish resources, which could
indicate more precisely the economic and social benefits and
disadvantages of the new technology.

TABLE 5.1 - Number of Powered and Unpowered Boats and Catch
by All Boats in Peninsular Malaysia, 1957-1967

Year

Number of Powered Boats

Number of Unpowered Boats

Total Boats

Total Landings (tonnes)

1957

6,283

17,541

23,824

110, 863

1958

7,296

17,752

25,048

112,104

1959

7,884

14,379

22,263

118, 622

1960

8,940

14,608

23,548

139, 469

1961

9,665

13,293

22,958

150, 650

1962

9,772

12,338

22,110

170, 207

1963

10,483

12,262

22,745

183, 636

1964

10,727

10.903

21,630

192, 158

1965

12,183

10,281

22,464

198, 377

1966

12,535

8,371

20,906

236, 607

1967

13,032

7,204

20,236

301, 856

Source: Anonymous (1968), pp. 215-16

Despite the absence of information on the early development of
the trawler industry in the country, there is much evidence to
show that its impact on traditional fisherman interests was
immediate and adverse. Although fisheries in Malaysia, as
elsewhere, are a common property resource in the sense that there
is open access to it, there has arisen over time some notion of
fishing boundaries and prior rights over fishing areas among the
various traditional fishing communities. Few serious conflicts
seem to have arisen in the past on the crucial matter of rights
over fishing areas partly because of the small size and limited
power of traditional boats which restricted their range of
operation, so that communities were mainly confined to working
the waters closest to them. The advent of powerful boats with
longer fishing range and with crews drawn largely from outside
the traditional fishing industry who had no knowledge of or
respect for long-established rights of fishing villages quickly
upset the previous stability. Although equipped with more
powerful engines which could have enabled the boats to operate
much further offshore, trawler fishermen preferred to work within
the inshore waters where the more profitable demersal fish
resources and prawns were located. This often meant intruding
into the established grounds of fishing villages in pursuit of
profitable shoals and damaging the nets and other gear of
traditional fishermen when these came in their way. Less
immediately provocative but also a cause of concern to
traditional fishermen was the resource-damaging nature of trawler
operations, in which small-mesh nets were dragged along the
seabed, damaging breeding grounds and sweeping up young fish,
prawns, and other marine life before they were commercially
valuable.

It was inevitable that bad feelings between trawler fishermen
and traditional small-seale and inshore fishing communities
should grow and take a violent turn. By the early 1960S relations
between the two fishing groups had worsened and bloody conflicts
began taking place regularly. Between 1964 and 1976, a total of
113 incidents involving 437 trawlers and 187 inshore vessels were
reported, mainly along the West Coast, with 'considerable loss of
property and life (Goh, 1976: 19 These figures are official
estimates and probably represent only a small part of the total
number of clashes, with many clashes either going unreported or
failing to make their way into the official records. Besides the
threat to law and order, there were other good reasons why strong
government intervention in regulating relationships between
inshore small-seale and trawler fishermen was required. Almost
all the trawlers were owned by non-fishing capitalists who
recruited largely Chinese crews comprising mainly unemployed
urban youths. Many inshore fishing villages, on the other hand,
contained predominantly ethnic Malay populations, although there
was a fair sprinkling of mixed communities. In the clashes
between the trawler and inshore fishermen, there was a potential
danger of ethnic conflict which could affect the wider society.

Another compelling reason for government action was the danger
to fish resources that unregulated trawler operations posed.
Although no accurate statistical data is obtainable, it is now
generally agreed that the rapid build-up in trawler numbers and
the expansion in their operations have been the main factors
contributing to the present situation of overfishing, which faces
some species in the inshore waters of the West Coast. By
'overfishing' is meant that catches were exceeding the maximum
sustainable yield of species, thus bringing about the depletion
of the resource. The problem of overfishing was not only an
outcome of the increase hi the number of trawler boats and their
operation in inshore waters but it was due also to the illegal
use of small-mesh nets which resulted in a high proportion of the
juvenile marine-life being caught in the nets. Some indication of
the overfishing can be deduced from Table 5. 2, which shows the
declining productivity of trawlers as measured in landings per
unit, between 1966 and 1972. At the same time, the proportion of
'trash' fish (which includes juvenile fish and prawns) increased
considerably. For example, Yap (1980 :29) estimated trash fish to
comprise 60 per cent of the total increase of travvler landings
between 1973 and 1974. In Perak, which had the largest increase
in trawers, increases in trawler fish landings accounted for 99.5
per cent of the total increase in fish landings.

As a result of the depletion in fish resources, trawler
fishermen have had to increase their catch effort to maintain a
level of production that ensures profitability. More seriously
affected were the inshore fishermen, who were caught in a vicious
spiral of smaller catches which reduced their incomes and
inadequate capital to increase their catch effort or purchase
bigger boats and engines. By the mid-1970s, the outlook for small
fishermen was gloomy, with 'uncmploymellt and underemlployment in
the fishing village' teeing grim, daily realities' (Golf, 1976:
22).

The government's response to this crisis, which mainly
affected fishing along the West Coast, has been studied by other
scholars and what is provided here is a summary of some of the
main findings (Gibbons, 1976; Yahaya, undated; and Yap, 1977 and
1980). The initial government response to the introduction of the
new technology in gear and engines had been to welcome it. This
can be seen from the thrust of policy objectives in the First
Malaysia Plan which was towards greater productivity in fishing.
By 1965, the country had transformed itself from a net importer
of fish to a net exporter for the first time since it obtained
independence, and the authorities were optimistic of greater
returns from further development.

The Fisheries Division's programme of activities strongly
reflected the production-oriented approach of the First Plan.
Among the priorities were the training of fishermen to man
larger, more powerful, arid more sophisticated vessels, the
provision of financial assistance to the industry to modernize,
and the expansion of researeh and fisheries extension services to
support the development. Although it had no firm data as to the
size of fisheries resources in the country, there was a strong
belief amongst fisheries officials that the country's waters were
under-fished and trawler fishing was assigned a major role in
fisheries development since it was regarded as the most
productive method and had the greatest potential for expansion.
In 1968, a report produced by the Division of Fisheries on the
position of the fishing industry declared that it was the policy
of the government 'to encourage trawling' and 'steps had been
taken to encourage this objective' (Anonymous, 1968: 221).

These steps consisted in part of the government's resistance
to the strong pressure exerted by inshore fishermen on the
authorities to ban trawler fishing. In 1964 a ban on trawler
fishing was imposed by the government in response to the
esealating violence between the two fishing groups but this ban
was short-lived. In 1965 the government reversed its decision and
agreed instead to give out trawler licences through
co-operatives, subject to various regulating conditions such as
minimum mesh size, fishing hours, specific landing centres' and a
prohibition on fishing inside the 12nmi zone. In 1967, the
regulations were relaxed to permit smaller trawler boats to
participate and to expand the areas officially permitted for
trawler fishing. On the surface, it appeared that government
policy had taken a correct position by curbing the activity of
individual trawler entrepreneurs and by paving the way for the
poorer small-seale fishermen who were to be organized into
co-operative societies to participate in the more lucrative
fishing method. Also, restricting trawler fishing to beyond the
inshore waters and during daytime would ensure that trawler boats
did not intrude into the traditional grounds of the inshore group
or operate undetected. In this way, both production and social
objectives would be attained.

However, the limitations of these policy decisions were
quickly exposed. There was an almost immediate increase in the
number of trawling co-operatives and the granting of a large
number of trawler licences with the liberalization of the
previous restrictions. But, contrary to expectations, inshore
fishermen continued to be largely excluded from the industry.
Findings from Gibbons' study investigating the impact of public
policy on fishing development in Penang and Kedah reveal that the
trawler co-operatives were dominated by non-fishermen
entrepreneurs who joined the cooperatives solely to obtain its
substantial financial and preferential benefits, a development
which should not have been surprising to the authorities since
co-operatives were the only means through which licences for
trawling were given. These entrepreneurs who provided the boats
and working capital worked closely with the local-level elites
and state- and federal-level politicians who facilitated their
obtaining the trawler licences and membership in the
co-operatives. Not only did genuine fisherman participation in
trawler co-operatives fail to materialize, the great mass of
inshore fishermen also failed to obtain substantial employment
benefits from the development of the trawling industry, contrary
to the hopes of the Fisheries Department. This was because most
of the trawling positions were taken up by new entrants to the
industry. Also, trawlers generally require less labour per unit
of catch compared to traditional gear and did not create as many
employment opportunities as their numbers would lead one to
expect.

Number of Licensed Trawlers, Penang and Perak, 1966-1972

Year

Penang

Perak

Year

Penang

Perak

1966

21

10

1970

212

53

1967

48

15

1971

250

1,713

1968

89

21

1972

280

1,582

1969

159

23

Source: Goh (1973), p. 19.

Clearly, the decisions taken by the in 1965 and 1967 to permit
trawler development were short-sighted, especially given the
inadequate resources it could muster to ensure that the
regulations on trawling were properly observed and its inability
to ensure that large numbers of small-seale fishermen could share
substantially in the benefits arising from the relaxation in
anti-trawling policy. What is surprising is why the situation was
permitted to continue unremedied for so many years and why the
government tolerated the political interference which permitted a
small group to reap substantial benefits to the detriment of the
larger inshore fisherman interests. One would have expected that
the loss of political credibility, if not damage to national
interests, would have produced pressure for decisive remedial
action from the more responsible ranks of the government, but
this did not happen. As one puzzled high-ranking government
member (who was not yet in power when the policies were
formulated) puts it: 'By the 1960's, it was already known that
the inshore waters of the West Coast were being over-fished and
the marine resources were being fast depleted. Yet the situation
was allowed to drag on and grow worse for another decade until
the mid 1970's ...' (Goh, 1976: 23). It was not until 1975 that
the government arrived at the decisions not to issue new trawler
licences for boats of below 25 gross tons except in the East
Coast, to ban night fishing by small trawlers, and to renew only
liccnccs which had no previous record of violation of
regulations. These decisions restricting entry into the industry
left it too late to alter the pattern of ownership and control in
the trawler industry or to arrest the declining productivity of
the West Coast waters, especially since the new rules were not
accompanied by any great increase in the government's enforcement
capacity. Moreover, a new generation of illegal mini-trawlers
have managed to evade the efforts of the Marine Police and
Fisheries Department at implementing the new regulations. Various
estimates put the annual landings of demersal finfish for the
West Coast at 125 000-178 000 tonnes for 1973-80 with a
substantial proportion coming from the trawler landings. The
estimated maximum sustainable yield, however, is estimated at
about 110 000 tonnes per annum, leaving a tonnage of overfishing
of between 15 000 and 68 000 tonnes annually. In fact, demersal
fish landings had peaked by 1977-8 and begun to decline
thereafter. Other evidence of overfishing include the increasing
incidence of trash fish in the demersal landing and the decline
in the value of catch per unit effort. In the coming years, the
full impact of the substantial overfishing of the 1970s was to be
felt more severely.